


II. Andante

by Ghostcat



Series: Piano Sonata in G Major, "Pense-bête" [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: 1980s, Choices, Classical Music, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Music, Musician!Elio, New York City, Oliver has a lot of feelings which he needs to examine, Oliver's POV, POV Oliver (Call Me By Your Name), POV Second Person, Post Movie, The Possibility of Impossibility, Unresolved Romantic Tension, movie canon, remembering, romantic longing, some novel canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcat/pseuds/Ghostcat
Summary: Oliver makes plans to go see Elio play in New York City, 1989. Yet another possible parallel life.





	II. Andante

**Author's Note:**

> It’s December 7, 1989 in New York City. While there was no actual storm that day, the fight on pay-per-view is real.
> 
> Pense-bête is primarily based on movie canon but relies on novel canon as well, so while we are not in Ghost Spots territory, there is some borrowing of elements in that section. Basically, I couldn't make them wait twenty years.
> 
> This story is based off of sonata structure and part two is the "development" section.
> 
> UPDATE 2/21/18: The rollover feature is working! Just roll over the non-English language dialogue with your mouse and the translation will pop up. I don't believe this works on mobile, but it should work elsewhere. Thanks for your patience while I figured this out.

   You haven’t been out, not like this, in years and there is a quasi-comic element to your preparations. You go to the barber, have him trim your beard and spend enough time guiding him through it that he assures you that your wife will be very happy with the result. This forces you to smile, crack a joke, be the kind of man who winks at his barber and later, feel the smile drop off your face like an icicle off an eave.

   It’s not enough though, that hiccup, because you go home and get right back to it; picking your best camel’s hair coat and the dark blue suit your students always compliment. Then switch the suit for corduroys and a tawny cashmere sweater. Then back again to the suit. You use cologne, bay leaf and smoke, and clip your nails, buffing them with the brush that came in the kit you never use. All this effort takes hours and the whole time, you vacillate between laughing at your own vanity and letting the nerves overwhelm the comedy. You’re older, not _old_. That’s all. Are you ridiculous? Definitely.

   Six years was six years, they have not been unkind to your appearance. Hirsuteness aside, you look essentially the same. But still… what was the game plan here? If you are lucky, the evening will be a non-event, you’ll dip a toe into the crisp pool of remembrance and be back at your borrowed apartment in time to catch today’s boxing match on pay-per-view. If you are luckier still, you’ll see him and it will be warm, but removed, dim and contained, hands to yourselves, fond smiles all around. Nothing to be afraid of or worried about. There will be no fire to follow you back home and into your house and heart.

   It won’t be the first time you’ve seen him play in a formal setting, you were at his debut at the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival years prior when your wife insisted you go. The two of you hadn’t been members then, your seats were atrocious but it didn’t matter, it felt like you were closer than you were. For there he was, slight at the piano, hands rising and falling on the keys like a series of insistent, seemingly unanswered questions. You found that you could imagine his facial expressions based on the minute movement of his shoulders and torso; the bird-like tilt of his head. It had seemed absurd that a skill you’d mastered years prior during that summer—the ability to decipher his body language from a distance—was still there; ready to access like a necessary survival tool.

   Barb had misread your stunned look afterwards as a tribute to the power of the performance, teasing you that she hadn’t ever seen you as a music lover and that the sensitivity suited you. You’d smiled and ushered her out of the hall, claiming you wanted to avoid the post-concert crowds at the parking garage, driving home in a soft stupor as she spoke of future summer vacation plans to Prague. There had been nodding and _mmming_ along to her words, placeholders for conversational presence, all while your mind greedily supplied alternate images: green countryside, gelaterias near the piazzetta in Crema, the scrolled stone curve of your favorite sitting spot at the Perlman villa, freezing water numbing your toes, and Elio, the urgent insistence of his long fingers near your neck and chest, lips red and too far. It had seemed like the wrong time to say to her: “We knew each, years ago.” As if the word “know” would instantly acquire the weight of its true meaning—there would be no way to disguise or explain it. Everything was too close to the surface and one doesn’t point out the scene of a crime with a bloody knife in hand.

   That had been only four years after everything, but his face had changed in a way that was startling and illuminating; it was leaner, in-focus, more knowing. (Had you made him more knowing? Of course not. It was always knowing, merely softer, less sure.) It would be even more so tonight, two years later. Perhaps your face had changed as well, in ways everyday-glances at the mirror dim; those gradual, minute developments that bring you to the realization you are now older than your parents were when they had you—so therefore, you must be complete. But you are never complete. The process of becoming continues until you die.

   Would Elio have been disappointed if you’d waited around with the crowds to say hello back then? Wife at your side, in a worn corduroy jacket with patched sleeves—the parody of what a then-assistant professor would wear to an evening out? Saying, “Congratulations on your debut,” as if Elio were some sort of debutante and you, a polite well-wisher. Standing there making small talk and willfully ignoring the avid transparency of his face. What about all the times after, when you’d deliberately bought nosebleed seats, in New York or other cities, sometimes with Barb, sometimes alone? More often the latter, because it was better. Closing your eyes and listening, which was also to know him.

   And tonight, if you met. What might happen?

   It’s not too late to skip it entirely. But if not later, when? _If it be not to come, it will be now._ Some indecisive asshole said that.

   On a whim, you leave the Audi back home and drive your beloved car from college into the city. She’s a vintage ‘66 pale beige Mercedes Benz 250SE Coupe that you purchased from the spoils of an especially lucrative game of Texas Hold ‘Em with some chumps at Harvard. You christened her The Duchess publicly and Sweet Lady to yourself, keep her under a white cloth in your garage and let absolutely nobody touch her.

   Sometimes you slip into the driver’s seat on autumn Sundays and think about going somewhere—just you and Lady, listening to music and sipping cheap gas-station coffee but then Ben appears, with that built-in Daddy-seeking determination, climbing into the car with you and hitting the horn. You have to peel him off and bring him inside, under your arm, kicking and screaming, away from the garage and those temporary escape fantasies.

   You find a parking garage near Florrie’s and run up to drop off your bag and call Ben. He initially engages you in one of those monosyllabic conversations that four year-olds excel at. It wasn’t that long ago when he’d peer into receivers as if hoping to see the people there, in miniature, inside the pinholes, just waiting to talk to you. Now he knows his daddy is on the other side of the line so all the grunts and _dunno’s_ and _no’s_ charm, despite their abruptness. Eventually, Ben abandons his reticence to tell you a long story about all the sand stuck in the wheels of his new truck, in painstakingly minute detail, until the conversation goes silent again and you distantly make out the sound of his _vroom, vroom_ noises as he loses himself in that. You listen until the sound fades away entirely and just when you’re about to hang up, he gets back on with a clatter, asking you to call him again before bedtime. You promise. You will. You always do.

   A couple of blocks from the venue, Cafe Fiorello is surprisingly sparse so you decide to sit down and order a tea. Carefully, you thumb through the copy of John Ashbery’s _Houseboat Days_ that you purchased at the Strand as a gift for Elio years ago in the hopes that one day you could hand it to him, in-person. You doubt you’ll even be able to bring yourself to do so tonight. The lines in “Syringa”, the ones that made you think of him, weren’t on the first page but they were there, waiting. Perhaps, he’d read them a week from now or not at all and you wouldn’t have to know.

   For the first time in years, you wish you still smoked.

   Your waitress is young and pretty; an actress studying right across the street at Julliard. She likes you, you can tell by the flush across her chest. She’s used to being liked in return, you can tell that too. Her name is Samantha, and Samantha leans over you unnecessarily to point something out in the menu so you oblige her with some flirtation. Which is really just attention. It turns out that she’s from Duxbury and has a family friend from Newton who went to Commonwealth and was in your 8th grade class. You don’t know the guy, but how would you? You spent more time learning to play cards at Rich Krivitsky’s house in Jamaica Plain than hanging around at school. He taught you how to deal, not show your hand with your face, and how to kiss. Richie was mouthy, skinny and loved you. You were already a giant in 8th grade and were just happy to have a friend, any friends. Even one who stared at you the way he did; as if you were a way out. Not like you really were, an impostor, desperate to be smaller, less seen.

   In 9th grade, you filled out a little, joined the swim team, discovered girls. You and Rich grew apart, you’d feel his big brown eyes following you in the cafeteria as you horsed around with Sophie Brooks, who was fucking you regularly in her guest house after school.

   “Why does that creep stare at you?”

   You’d looked right at him. “Maybe he has nothing better to do.”

   To his credit, Richie never sold you out. He’d flunked out of school and lost his scholarship shortly thereafter. You never saw each other again.

   The shame wasn’t instantaneous, it grew over time. Weeks, then months, a year. You biked to the local library and sought refuge in research. The ancient Greeks distinguished between two types of shame— _aiskhyne_ and _aidos_. _Aidos_ was good shame: modesty, bashful maidens covering their bodies, that sort of thing. _Aiskhyne_ was the bad kind of shame—disgrace. But was your shame disgrace? Had you been dishonored? Had you dishonored yourself by not being good? Before that, you’d never given any thought to goodness. Not goodness in opposition to evil, but of morality itself. It was a comforting realization, sitting there among the stacks, to know that humans had been pondering these very questions for millennia, that you were not alone in your failure. People made choices and it wasn’t choices alone that defined their goodness—the reasons mattered too. The important thing was to know, think it through and strive for better.

   Not that you can claim to have mastered that lesson. In recent years, you’ve justified some choices by examining them in such a perfunctory way, they’d never quite become real. It’s not really you, therefore it’s not really your life. Why would it matter to Barbara what you did with other men if it didn’t apply to the life you had with her? Why should it matter if there was no correlation between one and the other?

   It didn’t happen often and became, eventually, a quiet shame you could live with.

   After the whole thing with Rich, you didn’t become a moral philosopher but that teenage soul-searching inquiry inadvertently led you to your career. What is philosophy but a road map of human experience? Who wouldn’t want to hold knowledge in their hands? Even if, half the time, that knowledge slips right through your fingers like cold water from a mountain stream?

   You pay the bill, tip Samantha well and are rewarded with her number. Her name, S-a-m S-u-l-l-i-v-a-n, in skinny, swirling autograph-ready hand. If you were the kind of person to keep such a thing, then the paper would fold neatly into your billfold, but you’re not. You are good. You tear it into tiny pieces and throw them into a closed garbage bin where they won’t scatter in the wind. The lights of 68th Street come on gradually, twinkling beneath an unnaturally light gray sky. The forecast said heavy snow and the iron in the air seems to confirm it. You buy a pack of cigarettes, and, because you somehow knew you would, you don't ask for matches, having dug up your old vintage lighter that morning under the pretext that you would be lighting cigarettes for someone other than yourself.

   They’re redoing your kitchen all week at Barb’s insistence—“If we have to sell the house then it’s best we make sure everything is top of the line.” It doesn’t make any sense to you, whoever buys the place will have their own ideas of what they want. Why bother with a middling restoration that would just get demolished and rebuilt upon. She had sighed and walked out of the room, her feet soundless on the deep rug.

   She took Ben to Newport Beach, narrowly missing the airport closings. You’re leading the admissions committee this year so you couldn’t follow. That’s what you’d told her, anyway. Peace and quiet seemed too much of a temptation to pass up though you miss finding Ben in the living room in the morning, cackling over cartoons and more awake than anyone could ever be in Greenwich, Connecticut.

   You’d forgotten about the renovations though, the brand new excavation site where your kitchen used to be. Florrie volunteered the use of her pied-a-terre at the Oliver Cromwell (“Your building,” she’d said with a snort, a joke you’ve heard a million times) but the thought of not having your books nearby was equally unappealing. After work, you’d mulled over her offer at Tower Records where’d you’d gone after work to pick up some distractions and wound up beneath an enormous photograph of Elio next to a list of his upcoming concerts in New York. He had eyes like a cartoonist’s wet dream, easy to exaggerate and focus on—sharply downturned at the corners, with a look that was half-sleepiness, half-come hither dare. Long curling hair and a wisp of a smile. So you’d laughed, looked at the black and white photograph and laughed your ass off, because after all his fun and games that summer, years later and a seeming lifetime away, it looked as if Elio had won somehow, in absentia via photograph. You had no countermove.

   Except to go to one of these recitals and talk to him afterwards, of course. Because you’ve got a competitive streak a mile wide and you hate thinking of yourself as weak. You’d squinted at the dates and saw that tonight’s engagement was closed to members of FIAF only—which you happen to be. You sweet-talked a single, called Florrie, currently in Miami for the holidays, and confirmed the stay at her apartment. Then you went home and prepared; grooming and packing with all the excitement of a burglar about to commit one last job; less worried about getting caught by the police than of properly savoring the thrill for as long as possible, because the exquisite feeling of daring would have to last you the rest of your life.

   The recital is at a small hall right off of Central Park West. From the outside the venue looks like a taller, wider version of all the other townhouses on the street, inside it’s wildly, almost tackily lush. All dark blue velvet carpeting and Bernini replicas, a grand-chandeliered entrance staircase leading to the room itself, about eighty seats below and another twenty above.

   When you collect your ticket, you discover it is a front row seat directly across the piano bench. For a wild, near-malevolent moment, you consider using it. But then you remember yourself and flag down a slender woman in a gray dress with stick-straight light brown hair in a long braid and the sharp eyes of someone who pays attention to details. You spotted her some fifteen minutes prior, going up a side staircase with a bottle of water and a stack of programs, returning with none.

   “Hi, do you work here?”

   She blinks up at you. It’s neither no or yes.

   “I have a front row ticket and I’m 6’5”. It would be cruel and unusual punishment to others if I took this seat. Do you know who I could speak to about swapping?”

   You add a smile. She takes your ticket and looks at it. “That’s next to mine. Let me see if we can swap both.”

   “Oh, please don’t give up yours on my account.”

   “I’m not, I have a similar problem. I prefer listening to watching, this way it will be easier.”

   “Thank you…?” you say, leaning down expectantly, waiting for her name.

   The young woman does not supply it, merely smiles. It’s familiar, that smile, and the non-answer is not rudeness, exactly, no. You can tell her mind is already on the task ahead. “I’ll be back shortly.”

   The well heeled crowd starts trickling into the hall and you wait, your eye drawn to the poster next to the ticket window. Another black and white photograph of Elio. A profile shot, in easy reach. You touch your lips. They’re not dry but you need water. You need all the water in the world.

   It helps that Elio’s gaze isn’t on you when you decide. You put on your coat, adjust your scarf, pop up the collar and step out into the street.

   It helps that you had no one to tell your plans to so you can keep revising your indecision until the very last moment.

   It helps that it’s cold too, and loud. Drivers on 68th Street hold down their horns all at once in a single multilayered cacophonous blast and you should go home, but there is no home. Florrie’s apartment is a few blocks away and waiting. You remove a glove and light a cigarette, nearly dropping your Ronson lighter on the first pass.

   The doors open and whoever’s there watches you, a blurry energy at your back. You turn and it’s the nameless girl from before. The one with focus and the serious eyes.

   “Hi there. I did a swap, we’re in the second level. Not great either, but I have a better listening spot if you don’t mind losing some of the visual.”

   You do and you don’t. “That’s fine. Has the performance started?”

   “No. Luc Dufort, one of the FIAF bigwigs, is giving some remarks. I know him, it’ll be another fifteen minutes.” She slows down on the word: minutes. “You weren’t leaving, were you?”

   She eyes your cigarette. It’s subtle but you can always recognize want in others.

   “Would you like one?”

   “No.”

   She steps out into the street and wraps one arm around herself and reaches out with the other. “Okay.”

   You remove your coat and put it on her shoulders and she… curtsies. You laugh and quickly light her cigarette. She inhales with something like weary gratitude.

   “God, this is my second today.”

   “It’s my first in years so you’re in good company.”

   She sidles up to you and either her manner of movement, an easy dancer-like shuffle, or her expression—open, pensive—makes her proximity unprovocative. She’s trying to return the warmth of your coat back to you without removing it from her shoulders.

   “Do you work for them?” you ask, bending your knees a little.

   “Who? The label?”

   “No, FIAF?”

   She shakes her head. “I work for Elio Perlman.”

   You straighten. “Oh? How long?”

   “All my life, it seems.”

   “Is he a good boss?”

   “He’s a spoiled brat.”

   She laughs, a goofy honk-bray that sounds like it should come from a different person. It transforms her face, softens it. She doesn’t like her smile, though or maybe what she’d said, because she covers her mouth with something like regret.

   “I’m joking.”

   “Of course.”

   “I mean it. He’s a good boss.”

   “I believe you.”

   She stomps out her cigarette and nudges you. “You’re shivering. Let’s go inside.”

   You forgot that you were leaving. She shrugs out of your coat, hands it back and sheepdogs you into the building so efficiently you barely feel led.

   “Don’t bother checking your coat. Come with me.”

   ‘With her’ is up one flight to the mezzanine level, then up another smaller staircase off to the side. You have to duck down on the second staircase, it’s tight and the ceiling is low; it takes you to a small hallway off which leads to a balcony. She holds her hand up and lowers her voice. “They saved these seats in case some muckety-muck decided to come. His loss. Go ahead. You can sit in the box. I like listening from the hallway.”

   You remove your coat and peek out. The balcony overlooks the stage, where a short, balding man with an incongruously deep voice talks about FIAF and the need for arts funding. The hall below is small but ornate, like a pastel jewel box. Your former seat is now occupied by a child, a girl with a ponytail so tight, it appears to stretch her face. She holds a book and shakes a sneaker-clad foot. The seat next to her is taken by her mother, an older, more spent version of the same face, slowly unwrapping a candy. They don’t look wealthy; neither of them are dressed for the event and a pinch-faced man with a cane seated next the them, eyes the pair with undisguised distaste. You know people like that back home, in your own family. They act as if being poor is contagious and they’re only one interaction away from coming down with it. Fools. You fight the urge to throw something at his shiny pate, then resist, placing your folded coat and scarf on the back of your seat and stepping back into the narrow hall, away from temptation, closing the door to the balcony behind you.

   “For an unused area, it’s remarkably clean,” you say, inspecting your fingers.

   “Oh, it’s used often enough. They just don’t always seat anyone here. Even the most exclusive of venues needs to have additional exclusivity.”

   “Indeed.”

   There’s a hexagonal-shaped window at the end of the hall and the sky’s gray is burning a brighter pink. You lean your forehead on the glass and watch the tree branches shiver past the window, the back garden a mix of slate, pebble and bare shrubbery; a fountain sitting at its center, dormant and empty.

   “This was built for the Whitneys. Their own personal mini concert hall.”

   “It’s unexpected,” you murmur, before fogging the window with your breath and drawing a circle.

   “Mr. Perlman likes it too.”

   At the mention of his name, you turn to witness her pulling out a wooden apple box from a curtained area, carrying it to the corner and stepping onto it, peering at a small speaker mounted high on the wall. “Hey. Can you stand on this and give me a boost?”

   “Sure.”

   You step onto the box and move to lift her but she stops you, bending down to remove her shoes.

   “Bend your knee a little.”

   She grabs your hand and propels herself upward, first launching off the box, then stepping onto your knee and angling forward; lifting on to the ball of her foot like a ballerina and reaching to flick on the switch. After a brief crackle, the basso profundo orator from below issues forth: _Schubert’s friends burned their letters so that any mentions of the dreaded disease would not become public..._

   “The dreaded disease,” you repeat. “An insufficient term nowadays.”

   “Luc thinks he’s clever.”

   You lift her down and she immediately puts on her shoes, straightening her wool stockings unselfconsciously.

   “You’re a dancer.”

   Her teeth are white like paper and perfectly straight. “Nah. I come from a family of goats, always looking for the tallest spot to climb at sunset.”

   “I don’t meet many goats in my line of work.”

   “Which is… Let me guess. Matinee idol?”

   “No.”

   “Mountie? Lifeguard?”

   You shake your head.

   “I know.” She pokes you in the chest. “Bell ringer.”

   “Like Quasimodo? Yes. How did you know? You’re good at this.”

   There’s that funny laugh again, this time she crinkles her nose, and doesn’t bother to cover her smile with her hand. She likes you, you realize, not as a prospect but companionably, and this fact, finally, allows you to lower your guard a little. You like her as well. She seems wholly without pretense.

   “I don’t know your name.”

   “Ah. Dafna. Sorry, I thought I’d said.”

   “Oliver. Why—”

   Before you can finish your question, the audience applauds wildly and Dafna opens the door to the balcony and nudges you through it.

   And there he is, below you, walking onto the stage. Hair longer than in the photos, and wearing a dark, baggy suit that’s short at the cuffs, his skinny ankles in light blue dress socks, a spot of idiosyncrasy that’s a signature. It’s fashionable, his get-up, and as ridiculous as Elio’s sartorial choices would be on your own impossible frame, on him it looks right; an extension of his natural, of-the-moment elegance. He looks up to the mezzanine, and you shift back against the wall, even though there’s no way he can see you, he’s not even looking in your direction. He’s pale, almost translucent, and the sight of his face, the lines of his jaw, smiling softly at the stands, fills you with unreasonable sort of tenderness. You want to sit him down and make him eat. You want to take hold of his chin. Kiss your way around the edges of his lips as if you were drawing their outline. Fight him and be fought, until you won or lost, crumbling in delirious laughter or sighs. You swallow the longing like a weighted stone.

   A tap at your shoulder. Dafna hands you a program. Schubert’s _Piano Sonata in G Major_ , Schumann’s _Kinderszenen_ and a Liszt piece you’re unfamiliar with. You remove the slim poetry book nestled in your coat pocket, put the program inside and lean forward in your seat to watch.

   Elio slumps forward at the piano bench and looks at his hands. He does so without seeming to notice the audience, as if he were alone, on a park bench, waiting for someone, thinking only of the time. He rubs the middle knuckle on his left hand, down and up, then straightens, fingers poised over the keys. He begins to play.

   The Schubert sonata is a delicate piece and Elio appears to think his way through its slow, reverent introduction, like some kind of internal, not quite-debate, but conversation. Eventually, like any good discourse, the melody opens up generously before returning to its initial, careful obeisance. It comes and goes this way, and each time the notes shift back into that cascading sparkle, Elio’s lips quirk as if there’s humor there. There are flashes of temper, bang and crescendo, in the composition and in his performance; and like any good story, you are hooked.

   It’s tempting, because of the way people listen to music and keep it in their heads and hearts, to assign intention that’s not there and so it goes with this—the piece feels like memory to you. Every time it returns to effervescence, it’s like returning to the past.

   You’ve never been back, not to Crema. Not to Bergamo. The closest was a sullen weekend in Milan where Barbara accused you of being a pill, over-exaggerating a cold and refusing to go out. Never mind that she was right. You resented the presumption. And in that very same humor, you wrote a postcard to the Perlmans that was full of gratitude and promises of future visits, none of which materialized.

   The next section of the piece begins and it’s equally contemplative at the start, then changes from polite to strident in a flash. As lovely as it is to look at him, there’s a strong ache to the action, so you lean back until you can’t see the stage below, and listen, just listen.

   During that glorious summer, Elio loved to play games with all the pieces he’d learned. He had an astonishingly prodigious memory and back then, seemed less interested in developing his own style as a pianist than in trying on different ones for amusement; witty and perceptive interpretations that made the originals more unique. One rainy afternoon, he’d played you Naked Eyes’ _Always Something There to Remind Me_ in the manner of a particularly bombastic Beethoven, then a dozen other variations; and afterwards, straddling the piano bench besides him, kissing the long line of that freckled neck, he’d murmured, “Of course, you know that’s not an original.”

   “Oh?”

   “Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote it, Dionne Warwick made it famous, but there was another version before it.” Lashes to your cheek, lips at your ear. “This requires further study.”

   He’d grabbed your hair then, fiercely, pulling your head back like a triumphant Salome addressing the mouth of John the Baptist, “I have an idea. Let’s do a tour of libraries. We’ll go to Venice, start at La Marciana and then go to Brescia, to the Biblioteca Queriniana, then Ambrosiana in Milan. We can read all day. What do you think? Do you want to?”

   Yes, you said. To the wonderful suggestion. To books and knowing. To biking together under the summer sun. To his brows, under your thumb, and his tongue over your own. Again and again, back to that now-shared room with the pushed-together beds, yes, and the buzzing flies Mafalda drolly referred to as “Gli Altri Ospiti”. And speaking of, where had everyone else been that afternoon—Mafalda and the Perlmans? Anchise? Your memory had failed to preserve them.

   But it was more than sex, everyone says that, but it was. In the dark after dinner, Elio went right back to describing the wonders of La Marciana as if there had been no interruption to your conversation: a reading room decorated with Titians and Veroneses, the gold rimmed leaf spines of the codices, the smell of millions of books, all the worlds that waited there and it was as if someone had seen inside your head, saw the simple things you wanted most, and was telling you, tenderly, that it was beautiful.

   That conversation, those lazy hours, had seemed like what men long for heaven to be: beautiful and improbable, but perhaps possible, if you were good enough.

   Feeling lightheaded, you exit the balcony, careful and quiet. You find Dafna on the floor, eyes closed. She opens one and points to her ear and you understand, finding it to be an excellent idea. You move a little further down the hall and do the same.

   The Schubert concludes, followed by the Schumann and the Liszt, both delicate, contemplative affairs. Elio’s playing is exquisite, better than it was when you first knew him. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be, with practice and experience, art grows and deepens; but it bothers you, a little, in a stupid, petty way. Because you’d missed witnessing the change and you are possessive about things like that.

   When the Liszt ends, as gentle as a lullaby, the crowd bursts into applause and the way the sound seems to rise, you know that they’re standing. You stand and brush carpet lint off of your trousers. Dafna gets up as well.

   “There will be an encore. Probably Debussy’s Toccata for the Francophiles.”

   The applause grows louder, followed by silence and then the loud bang of a grand introduction, far more emphatic than the previous selections on the program.

   Dafna’s eyes widen. “What on earth?”

   She goes onto the balcony and you follow her, glancing over her shoulder at the stage. Elio’s curls shake as he puts his whole body into the encore; melody—bright and loud, invigorating. Every now and then he seems to glance towards the seat to his right, your former seat, at the little girl sitting there, closed book in her lap—smiling her way as if he’s presenting her with a gift. He is, he’s playing for her, and she watches his hands with a wondrous, open-mouthed impression, her leg jiggling madly. Next to you, Dafna laughs softly, hands to her mouth.

   “What is he doing?” Her laugh is helpless and gentle. “Silly Elio.”

 _Yes._ Elio, always happiest in gifting others with the things he loved most. Poetry, music, places, experiences even. Like Signora Albertini, the old woman a few villas down from the Perlmans who organized a semi-annual Dantistan debate. You remember how delighted he’d been for you to experience it, sitting tight at your elbow, translating verse-discourse on Petrarchan Humanism, and discussing it after, for pleasure. He rewarded you with too many kindnesses to mention, completely unaware of their effect. They’d accrued over the summer, bit by bit, until you knew, with a damp, panicky certainty, that should he ever look you in the eye and say, give me something too, give me you, it would happen and you’d be lost.

   When the applause dies down, Dafna excuses herself to go find Elio. You don’t follow or ask any questions, she acts as if she’ll see you at the exit and there’s a kind of grace to that. Moving slowly, taking your well-considered time, you grab the wooden box from before. Using a long, thick wire with a curved tip you’d found by the window (probably left there for this exact purpose) you turn off the wall speaker. Silence. The weight of it is airless and depressing. You throw your scarf around your neck, grab your coat, put away your book with the program tucked inside, and head downstairs, ducking to avoid getting bashed on the forehead. Exiting, you take a different staircase, one on the side, and it leads to another corridor. There’s no blue carpeting there, just black-and-white checkerboard tiles. Since it’s blessedly empty, you jump onto a black square determined to make your way, one move at a time, to the stairs and exits at the end. Find Dafna again, perhaps, and decide on the next play.

   A gold-trimmed door bangs open, and suddenly, Elio appears in the corridor, CDs and pen in hand, sliding into a small ebullient spin. He looks up from his feet and stops short, presumably at the sight of you, standing there with your coat folded over your arm.

   You smile. “Don’t know if you remember me, but I stole your bedroom one summer.”

   It sounded better in your head.

   He stares at you with no expression, long enough to make you nervous. Has he really forgotten? The effort of keeping your smile relaxed increases infinitesimally.

   “Remember you?” he says, finally. Like an echo of your thought, voiced so softly you find yourself leaning to hear it. “Of course, I remember.”

   He hasn’t said your name. Of course, he said. _Of course, I remember._ Now you’re repeating his words, mumbled seconds ago, in your head, instead of speaking out loud. And this hallway, this building, this city seem unnaturally quiet in contrast, reducing you both—minuscule figures in a lonely, silent world.

   You shift, and near-simultaneously, he does as well, taking a step towards you. A move reminiscent from another day when he took a single, deliberate stride through the mirroring-water, and you sidestepped—an anxious dancer who was not quite ready to engage with the music.

   His eyes are a greener green, lashes darker too. He’s not blinking. Neither are you.

   The hall doors open, bringing a blast of voices, led by a woman with slicked-back red hair clad in a trim, dark suit and polished black-and-white wingtips. Her voice is a cigarette-roughened growl and she speaks the kind of lightning-fast French that sounds like endlessly amused bewilderment.

   “Ah, the voilà mon chéri. Viens que je te présente—”

   You miss the rest of the conversation as they all begin speaking at once, in a warm, rushed babble of French and German. Elio bends to shake hands, the picture of elegant politeness, as the woman puts her palm on his back, subtly guiding him to each person in the group. On the third introduction, she turns and looks you up and down, nodding in seeming appreciation as if to say _congratulations on being pleasing_.

   Your response to this sort of thing varies, given the situation. Often it’s a smile in return, best to be gracious. Manners cost nothing, your wretched old man used to say. This time it’s that, but also a clear mental imperative to make your exit now, as soon as possible, before he notices and stops you.

   Furtively, you move down the hall towards the main stairwell, but make the mistake of turning around once you get there. Never turn around, that is the lesson in every ancient story. Do not look back. Look back and risk all. You look back. Elio is in deep discussion with a woman wearing a bright blue fascinator that trembles as she speaks; you are forgotten.

   There’s a tap at your shoulder. A skinny young man with large, startled eyes swallows nervously before murmuring, “We are closing this area, sir. Please allow me—”

   “Leave him,” Elio says, holding up a hand without turning from his conversation. “He’s with me.”

   You shrug apologetically, but the young man has already made a hasty exit—shuffling off to find other stragglers, it would seem.

   That’s three times now you’ve tried to leave. And now, you’ve been claimed. There is no fourth.

   The handsome woman in the suit, Elio’s manager you gather, whispers in Elio’s ear. He runs his fingers through his hair.

   “Cinq minutes ?”

   “Cinq minutes, pas plus. Et après, on va boire, okay ?”

   “D’accord.”

   She takes Elio by the arm and steers him away from the group, towards the big set of stairs leading to the hall. The rest follow, like a curve of birds flying together in the sky. Elio looks your way and says, with perfect clarion volume, from his lungs to your ears to your groin, “Wait for me.”

   You nod. As if you were going anywhere.

   The concert hall, small as it is, sold out, and it’s impressive how quickly the staff has cleared it, given the audience. You walk down the hall, attempting a straight line, one foot in front of the other, as a half-hearted test of your mental and physical capacity. You catch your reflection in a hall mirror and see a man who doesn’t know a thing.

   “Hey. Thanks for turning off the speaker box.” Dafna calls out from the exit stairs. She’s wearing a belted coat and carrying a bulky black bag which she sets down gingerly at her feet. “Did you meet Elio?

   “Yes, I was instructed to wait here for him.”

   Her expression shifts swiftly through several emotions: surprise, humor, acceptance. She should never play cards.

   “Oh. What did you think?” Dafna asks, pulling on her hat.

   “Beautiful,” you say, focusing on the golden tassels of the blue velvet curtains, their frayed ends sparkling. “The Schubert especially. It was beautiful.”

   “Wasn’t it? I hadn’t heard him play that one in years. He’s never recorded Fantasie, but he really should. That first section is so much more delicate than I remember. All those sixths. It’s not a piece I love without reservations, the rest doesn’t live up to the first section, but wow. What a stunner of a start.”

   She bites her thumb and you can read a question on her face before she asks.

   “Want another cigarette?”

   “Am I that transparent?” She crinkles her nose. “I’m sorry. Let me buy you a fresh pack. There’s a deli around the corner. Elio has to go deal with all the autograph hounds they have corralled outside, then have drinks with some Deutsche Grammophon reps. We can meet them at the restaurant, it’s not far from here.”

   You look towards the empty stairs. Now, that Elio’s seen you and you’ve seen him, the most difficult part of the evening is over. You put on your coat. “Sure, why not?”

   “Great. Follow me.”

   She picks up the bag from the floor and tips over a little hanging it on her shoulder.

   You extend your arm. “May I?”

   “It’s heavier than it looks.”

   “I think I can handle it.”

   Reluctantly, she hands the bag over to you. It’s a manageable, awkward heaviness, and you follow her back to the front area, through the lobby and finally out in the street. The sky has a foreboding red cast and the night feels warmer than before but that could just be you. You feel warmer; you’re buzzing, veins full of fire. Desire is motion after all, motion is heat.

   The bag’s sharp contents bite at your ribs as you walk. “So what are you carrying in here? Body parts? Knives?”

   “It’s Elio’s. Books mostly, CDs, his portable player, other nonsense. He always travels as if he’s never coming home.”

   “Or stuck in a waiting room for the foreseeable future.”

   “He does not like to wait.”

   You snort. “Does he usually make you carry his things?”

   She shakes her head. “No. He hates when I do this, actually. I just don’t want him to get rushed off somewhere and not know where his beloved books are.”

   You’re unzipping the bag before you can even think to ask if it’s okay and pull out the first tome you can find. “Oblomov? Never know when you’re going to need that.”

   Dafna stops walking. “Please don’t open his bag.”

   “Sorry,” you say and slide the book back in the bag, lifting up your hands after, palms bare. Nothing there, no tricks.

   You walk in silence for another block and at the light, she takes your arm to cross the street. Immediately afterwards, she wavers, seemingly unsure whether to keep her hand there. She tightens her grip, looking at the line of taxis, steam rising from their hoods like breath, waiting for them to pass. “Sorry I was rude. I shouldn’t have snapped.”

   “No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have snooped. Or judged the Goncharov. Poorly done, me.”

   She smiles and deftly pulls you around a pile of dog feces in the middle of the sidewalk in which you’d very nearly stepped.

   “Read a lot of Russian lit, do you?”

   “Not a lot. But some.”

   “Oblomov. I can’t believe he’s lugging it around. He’s read that book hundreds of times.” She sighs a musical sigh, affection bleeding through the exasperation. “In nearly every way, he’s the most accomplished, responsible person I know. In other, smaller ways, he’s so young. He reads and listens to things over and over again, turning everything inside out.”

   “That’s a young person’s trait?”

   “Yes, who else has the time?”

   “You can’t be more than a year or two older than him. You’re a young person.”

   “Not really. Because I don’t have the time. What are you, thirty? Early thirties? Do _you_ have the time?”

   You’re not sure if you do.

   “Nevertheless,” you say, after a moment, trying to sound casual. “We know that the unexamined life is not worth living. Perhaps that’s how he chooses to examine the unexamined. By knowing it so well, it becomes more than knowledge—it’s absorbed, becomes a part of him.”

   Dafna nods, distracted by the sight of teenagers leapfrogging across the street and howling with laughter. She points to a bodega halfway up the block, and indicates running on ahead. Then does, her breath steaming from her mouth like coal smoke from an engine train.

   The door to the bodega opens with a doorbell chime and the store is bright and cramped, with a prominent display rack devoted entirely to pork rinds. Suddenly, you’re hit with an urge to buy a sixer of beer, something cheap, weed, also cheap, convince Elio to ditch his business drinks and run with you into Central Park. Not to drag him into the Ramble—the mere thought of that scenario is too much for this particular moment, contemplating the beer selection under flickering fluorescents—but to be free from time. To simply go be, sit and talk under the trees, alongside the water. Then sleep, their bed, the forest canopy, together without otherness or shame.

   “Marlboro Reds, right?”

   The summer sights and sounds vanish in an instant. “Yes.”

   You join her by the register with your six-pack of beer and she looks at it with mild, momentary confusion before taking it from your hand and placing it on the counter. She hands you the cigarettes. “I paid for those already. I’ll get this as well.”

   “No need.”

   “Please let me.” Dafna winces and blurts, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to offend you in case I’m misreading this, but you should know that Elio has a flight at noon tomorrow to London. He’s not going to be around long.”

   The misery is plain on her face and you take pity on her, squeezing her arm. “Thank you for letting me know. Meet you outside?”

   And at her nod, you exit.

   The pack is tight, so you bash it against the heel of your palm. The fear returns temporarily. You don’t know what you’re doing here. This was a terrible idea. Why did you let him see you? You rip the cellophane, flick open the lid, and pull a cigarette out with your teeth. You would convince him to meet you tomorrow if he didn’t already have a flight booked. Or maybe that could be the solution? After all, what could be safer than breakfast before a flight? Then you could be a lesser kind of coward. Morning coffee, plenty of people, a limited amount of time, a ready-made out.

   It occurs to you that now you have two nearly-full opened packs of cigarettes. You light the one in your mouth and pocket the newer pack.

   Dafna appears carrying two bags, one bulkier than the other, and hands it you. “There is beer at Shun Lee’s.”

   “Oh, is that where drinks are?” You scratch your neck. “I think I’m going to pass. I’m beat.”

   “I’m sorry. Do you need me to tell him?”

   “Who? Elio?” You shake your head. “No, I’ll tell him myself.”

   You offer her a cigarette, light it for her and look at your watch. “Funny. I thought he was sick of Chopin. That was Chopin, right? The encore piece. The ‘Heroic’ Polonaise that George Sand was so hot about.”

   “How do you know that he dislikes Chopin?” She blows smoke away from her face.

   “I read it in a magazine profile.”

   She laughs, raising her eyebrows. “Uh-oh. So you’re a _fan_.”

   You would say, yes, I suppose I am, but that isn’t necessarily true and it doesn’t seem right to lie to her. For one night, you would like to not lie.

   “Actually—”

   And suddenly, you are dimly aware of the sound of running behind you, so you look, ready to run or fight, and it’s Elio, sprinting across Columbus, hair and coat flying. He leaps up onto the sidewalk and crashes into your arms, embracing you so tightly that the force of it startles a nervous laugh from you.

   “Goodness.”

   He feels more solid than the last time he held you but the livewire feel of him is exactly the same. Exactly the same. You clap him on the shoulder, a bit more strongly than necessary, trying to break away before you can’t let go at all.

   “You okay?” you ask, angling your head to look him in the eye. It startles you, the black ring around his iris, the fat pulse of his pupils—the entire absurd pretense of not-knowing.

   Elio steps back, just as quickly as he’d collided into you, but keeps a hand on your arm as if steadying himself, his eyebrows knitted into a mask of worry. He pants, shaking his head, before finally managing to speak. “I thought you’d left. I went looking for you on Broadway, then I circled the block. Five times.”

   Your elation is embarrassingly overwhelming. He looked for you. It takes every cell of your being not to show it.

   “Well, you found me. I was getting cigarettes with Dafna.”

   He turns wildly in the wrong direction. “My cousin?”

   “Right next to you.” Dafna’s eyes dart between Elio and yourself; and while she’s clearly trying to solve the puzzle of your acquaintance, her concern wins the fight. “Elli. Breathe.”

   He lets go of your arm and steps back. Bending forward, holding his elbows, swinging a little. His shoulders rise and fall, slowing down. Dafna rubs his back between his shoulder blades.

   “Sorry,” Elio whispers to the sidewalk, so mournful you almost laugh. “I think I overdid it.”

   “That’s all right, buddy. Relax. We wouldn’t want you to get a nose bleed.”

   Dafna looks up at you sharply and a look is not a question so there’s no reply to give. You nod once and she regards you with the air of someone who has just discovered they’d lost to a ringer holding a royal flush.

   Elio stands up, swallows and reaches for your hand. He squeezes it, his hands warm despite the cold. “Hi.”

   “Hi.”

   He points to Dafna with your hand still in his. It looks as if he’s presenting your hand to be kissed.

   “This is my cousin Dafna. Dafna, Oliver.”

   “We’ve met.”

   “Cousin, eh?”

   “Normally, he introduces me as his stateside personal assistant, which I am. But yes.”

   “Whose side? Papa Perlman’s?”

   “My uncle.” She crosses her arms.

   Looking at them, side by side, the resemblance is there. You wonder how you missed it. Elio has Annella’s lushness to set him apart, but he shares the directness of Dafna’s gaze. The same gaze that is now firmly on your wedding ring. Elio tilts his head back slowly and lets go of your hand with a close-mouthed smile. It’s prim and contained and a little dangerous.

   You try to explain, aiming for the broad jocularity of former team members. “I was at Tower Records and saw a big photo of you in one of those lit up thingamabobs—”

   He softens slightly. “Lightboxes.”

   “Right. And I thought, it’s been too long. Let’s go see Elio.”

   It sounds incredibly stupid, even to you.

   “What are you doing tonight?” he says finally, with a disconcerting lack of affect.

   “Well, I was hoping to say a quick hello, then go watch the Duran/Leonard fight. My house in Connecticut is getting renovated, so I’m staying at my godmother’s pied-a-terre a few blocks away.”

   “And the family?” His tone still blank and feather-light.

   “They’re out of town.”

   Whatever you were expecting from Elio next is not what he gives you. His face loses the facade of blankness, and for a brief moment, he looks stricken. As if your words have just opened up a chasm and the options to go around, above, or ignore it are too limited to contemplate. In your eagerness to appear casual, you’d forgotten just how much of a better man he was than you and that your thoughtlessness would be like a slap in the face.

   “Hey.”

   This is not what you want. Not at all. You reach out and put a hand on his shoulder, tentatively. Elio inhales sharply, an expression of mild blankness plastered on his handsome face. He, too, should never play cards. But you already knew that. You remove your hand and he sighs, hunching his shoulders forward.

   “Look, I know you have obligations tonight, and Dafna told me you had a flight tomorrow. So umm, maybe we can meet for an early-morning coffee or something. We’ll catch up and then you can say bye to me and go catch your plane. Or not, if it’s too much of hassle. I understand.”

   His right hand goes up to his neck and he touches his sternum but you don’t see a necklace there for him to play with. Instead, he chews his lip and you watch his silence, knuckles against his bare skin.

   You’ve let him down. He doesn’t know that you’re an idiot, an idiot with all the words in the world at your disposal and no actual eloquence when you most need it. In the possible/impossible weeks where you lived as everything to one another, you could’ve told him that you knew exactly what you wanted. And that it meant nothing unless he wanted it as well. He would have said yes. Because here or there, the two of you are not meant to be two at all. In that story, the parallel one, you are and remain only one. It could be talk, just talk, or warm silence; either would be as welcome as nectar-sticky skin on an arid day, just as sweet.

   Here you are two.

 _Oliver. Oliver. Oliver._ If only you could say it. Whisper it in his ear. That would say it all.

   You pull off your scarf, fold it so that the ends align, and carefully place it around his neck, pulling one side through the loop, covering his exposed throat. You do it without thinking; a thoughtless act.

   “Why not tonight?” Elio breathes out, in a rush, and blushes. Not as a creeping rise of color but one violent splotch on his cheek, like a rose or a bruise from a sucker punch.

 _Aiskhyne_ or _Aidos_? Aidos. He nods, first slow, then faster and stupid as you are, you nod back in exactly the same way: determined, resigned, ready.

   “Elio, don’t you have drinks at Shun Lee’s?”

   You have completely forgotten Dafna, standing there like a reminder that there is another life, the real one, that one you both now inhabit. Not together, separate. But these are not the same waters, you are not the same man and yet, here you are, both of you together again.

   “Change of plans. Tell them I don’t feel well and reschedule for next month.”

   “But—”

   Elio spins on his heel, effectively switching from quiet day to lively night, and dips down to kiss Dafna’s cheek, plucking the cigarette from her hand before she can protest. He takes a deep drag and blows out a pair of wide, wobbly smoke rings, which he dispels with a popping motion of a pointed finger.

   “When am I back? The 22nd? That works.”

   He presents this reasonably. An arsonist smiling calmly while saying _I will set the house on fire._

   “Elio—”

   “I’m so tired. I really can’t.” He yawns grandly and stretches, springing into motion, taking his bag from your shoulder and walking back to the corner, gesturing for you to follow. “Don’t go to your godmother’s. We’ll go to my place. We’ll arrange for a car service from the hall. You can watch the fight there, I don’t care. Dafna, I have cable, right?”

   The quick _clop_ of her shoes as she scampers after much-faster Elio is as anxious-sounding as her voice.“But they’ve seen you tonight. Clem has seen you, she knows you’re not sick.”

   “I have a car,” you offer. Again, stupid. So stupid.

   “You have a car,” Elio echoes and turns back to her. “He has a car. He’ll drive.”

   The walk sign comes on and Elio bounds off again. Dafna looks at you with all the disappointment of a mother and you have enough sense to play dumb. She pushes past you and pulls Elio by the sleeve, raising her voice over the street noise. “Ça ne te ressemble pas. C'est un meeting vraiment important.”

   “Je sais. Je suis crevé, c'est tout. It’s that nervous exhaustion thing we were talking about this morning. Tu comprends ? Hein ?”

   They jump on the curb and break ahead. It doesn’t look like they’re speaking, communing would be more apt. You fall back and light another cigarette, feeling as if you’re on an invisible leash and not minding all that much because you have ceased to reason, apparently.

   You catch up at the next light. Elio holds Dafna’s hands in his.

   “Je sais ce que je fais. C'est plus important pour moi. Quand ai-je manqué de professionnalisme ? Trust me, Didi.”

   She shakes her head. “I—. Okay. They delivered some furniture to your place today. It’s all assembled.”

   “Wonderful.”

   “And that other stuff. Which I’m not happy about.”

   “Great!” He pumps his fist and rubs his hands together, laughing in the direction of his feet.

   “I’ll go to Shun Lee’s and explain. Then I’m hailing a cab.”

   “Good. Expense it.”

   “I plan to. Call me tomorrow. The driver will be by around nine to take you to the airport.”

   He nods.

   “Pas de bêtises. Promis ?”

   “Fais-moi confiance.” Elio glances up at you. “Elio will be fine.”

   Dafna holds her hand up in goodbye, and you know then, that in the span of one block, he’s told her everything she needs to know about you. And while you don’t like to be known, the usual anxiety doesn’t manifest.

   Family—Elio was lucky that way. Well, lucky in most ways, favored really, but especially in that. Not everyone comes from people whose love for you trumps their disappointment.

   She shares one last look with Elio and heads down the block towards the restaurant. You watch her go until she turns the corner, prolonging the moment you’ll find him waiting for you again.

   It doesn’t disappoint. He raises his eyebrows once and you laugh, oddly nervous to be alone with him. Even on a city street, with people brushing past, your scarf around his neck. You stub out your barely-smoked cigarette and watch it come apart under your heel.

   “So where’s your car?”

   “At a garage on 72nd, next to the Dakota.”

   “Good. Let’s go.”

   With those long legs, he’s a fast walker. One would think he was born here, the way he moves with single-minded focus, darting through the evening post-restaurant crowd. Periodically you catch him smiling at you over his shoulder and it’s happy and uncomplicated. You wish you could take his hand but they’re back in his pockets.

   When you get to the parking garage, you pay at the grubby little window and wait for them to bring Lady out. Elio wolf-whistles at the sight of her.

   “What a beauty. She definitely belongs to you.”

   “Thanks.”

   “How do you fit inside?” Elio peers into the interior, hand shielding his eyes.

   “With great care.”

   He guffaws and luckily for you, by the time you think to blush, he’s too busy picking lint off of his jacket to see it.

   “So where are we going?” you ask, standing by the driver’s side door.

   “Brooklyn. 15 Lefferts Place.”

   “Brooklyn?! Why on earth do you live there?”

   “Because it’s quiet and cheap and close enough to Manhattan without being in it.” He smiles. “And I have a yard, with a tree, wisteria blooming in summer on my terrace, and I can play the piano any time I want without some old lady beating her ceiling with a broom.”

   “You tricked me.”

   The Elio you once knew would have bitten back a smile. The one you’re relearning is as still as a formal portrait, replying with a mild, “Did I?”

   “I wasn’t expecting to drive to Brooklyn tonight. There’s going to be a storm.” You scratch your beard. “How will I get back?

   “I have a whole house, you’re welcome to stay.”

   You press your lips together, deliberately ignoring the suggestion. “I don’t know the area at all. What do I take—the FDR to the Brooklyn Bridge? I don’t even have a map. Can you help navigate?”

   Elio shrugs. “Why don’t I drive? That simplifies things.”

   “Excuse me?”

   He widens his eyes, nodding. The picture of guilelessness. “I’ll drive.”

   “You’ll _drive_?”

   He grins, head falling to the side, enunciating slowly as if you are a dunce. “I will drive. You can sit back and enjoy the scenery.”

   “You realize it’s not automatic?”

   “You realize it’s not automatic,” he repeats, parroting your accent and rolling his eyes, “Le chiavi per favore, Cauboi. We have to beat this storm of yours.”

   You throw the keys and he catches their silvery flash, grin going supernova, sauntering to your side of the car with easy purposefulness.

   “Excuse me, you’re in the way.”

   He watches you move, tapping the top of the open door with his long fingers, all smugness and amusement. You’d once told him how much you’d liked that particular mix of expressions on him. It doesn’t look like he’s forgotten.

   “Actually, why don’t you sit in the back. I’ll be your chauffeur.”

   “No way.”

   You pointedly ignore his snickers as you adjust the passenger seat so that your knees aren’t holding up your chin. Elio adjusts the driver’s seat as well but less so than you’d expect, he’s taller than he looks. When he turns the key in the ignition, you place your hand on his wrist.

   “Put on your seatbelt.”

   “Put on yours.”

   Elio buckles in with formal, almost conductorial grace, and turns on the radio as you go up the ramp up to the street. The unmistakable bass line from “Emotional Rescue” by the Stones plays and he yowls gleefully, speeding off around the block, in a gliding smooth curve as if he’s the one who has been driving the Duchess for the past ten years.

   “I used to love dancing to this song when I was fourteen.”

   You adore his profile. It’s as beautiful as a Roman coin.

   “At Le Danzing?”

   He laughs at that and you do as well, picturing him, even skinnier than he was when you first met him, doing a funky chicken on that outdoor dance floor.

   “Nooooooo. In my bedroom back home in Paris. Parties bored me but the dancing, that I loved. I’d dance in front of the mirror, lost in pretending.”

   “You’ve got moves, my friend. I remember.”

   “I don’t remember you watching.”

   “Well, I did.”

   Elio throws a quick glance your way, the tiniest curl of a pleased smile on his lips. “I didn't know.”

   How could he not have known?

   The Saturday night traffic is lively and the drive across the park isn’t the zoom through the canopied dark that you might have preferred. Nevertheless, you sit, unbothered by the traffic and quietly overwhelmed. You're a mess of feelings; expectant and nervy, full of yearning and hyper-aware of his proximity. You have no idea what to expect. Elio never does what you expect. This could end with both of you discussing French literature, or renting a movie, or getting into each other’s skin and all (or none) of it would be acceptable. You just want to be with him. You close your eyes and rest your head on the seat.

   “Don’t fall asleep on me.”

   “I won’t.”

   Soon enough, the cathedral-like arches of the Brooklyn Bridge loom ahead and glittering Manhattan is at your back. You place your hand at the window, superimposing your fingers across the Twin Towers, spectacular and definitive, like a tightrope from one to the other until the motion of the car blurs and shakes the image. You want to connect it all; this feeling of absence that you’d grown so inured to, it had ceased being an exception; the city landscape all around you, suddenly so full of beauty and joy and love, as natural as seeds sprouting from the ground; the ecstatic quiet of contentment; Elio fiddling with the radio station as he drives. The rational meeting the natural, that flame in the darkness; holy and distinct.

**Author's Note:**

> Playlists for this fic can be listened to on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/ab9fc23einfyw2njezvth4dao/playlist/24BPFkBMuHM4aoYK6PIUu7) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWfM4lhzgKQVxAyKxWeKsnkR_OmDXkQ2j).
> 
> Thank you to:
> 
> cheshirecatstrut for going through all my grammar crimes for a fic in a fandom she has zero familiarity with. You the bomb.
> 
> Red-applesith for providing me with an excellent French translation and for understanding the need for proper context.
> 
> Arbitrarily for the wonderful feedback.
> 
> SilverLining2k6 for the outsider perspective.
> 
> and finally to Carogables and Nightlocktime for the cheerleading which I desperately need sometimes just to finish something, anything.
> 
> *
> 
> Thank you for reading! Follow me on tumblr: @ghostcat3000


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